DY444

On 10/03/2024 at 22:06, phil-b259 said:

 

So we are all supposed to shut up about the fact that the 'controlling mind' - which could have easily prevented 90% of the things folk have been moaning about (seating quality, types of couplers, types of bogie, trains ordered then binned after a couple of years use, etc) was deliberately smashed into so many pieces solely for party political / ideological reasons.

 

Even after 30 years I have no intention of letting the Politicians (or the party which did it) off the hook for that action!

 

Pick your saying- "Old Sins have long shadows", "you reap what you sow" the bottom line is that the majority of the railways woes can be traced directly due to its privatisation - and specifically the manor of its privatisation in 1994 whose overarching goal seems to have been to smash it into so many bits it would be impossible to put it back together again in 1994!

If we're in the business of apportioning political blame then the other lot had the opportunity to rectify much of the alleged damage between 1997 and 2010.  Moreover said other lot spent all of the period between 1994 and 1997 telling anyone that would listen that they would undo it.  And then they didn't. 

In fact they achieved the impossible, they made it worse.  The PUG2 fiasco happened on their watch, they foisted PPP on the tube which proved to be an expensive unmitigated disaster and then the piece de resistance, they created NR and let it borrow whatever it liked with impunity thus baking in NR's expertise at over spending on everything.  That gem is proving extremely difficult to turn around and the financial consequences of it are still being felt today.  They were also responsible for allowing the idea that electrification was pointless to get a foothold inside the DfT.  Let's not forget that Hatfield happened 4 years into their watch too.  They talked big and did nothing and kept doing nothing until two fatal accidents in under a year.  Then what they did just made it worse.

Yes privatisation has created a lot of problems but the idea that only one flavour of Government is responsible for all of its ills and how it has played out is partisan political tunnel vision. 

15 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Well, supposedly the GN 387's in dealer stock white (yes, just change the fleet names for the third time!) are heading south at the end of the year when GN get the ex Stansted Express 379's which in turn is meant to send the errant GatEx red ones back to proper GatEx work.  I have to sign 387's by the end of the year I have been told.

Yep.  The first 379s are being cycled through Hornsey as part of the work to return them to service.

On 13/05/2024 at 08:51, david.hill64 said:

Unless the rules have changed, this will be covered by the 'Network Change' clauses in the access agreements, the costs of which will be covered by Network Rail.

 

Under EU law, the relevant section of which may or may not have been repealed by the UK, it is mandatory to use ETCS when resignalling an existing route or opening a new route on the mainline railway, which constitutes a valid reason for doing it if still mandatory! I think that ETCS level 2 with back up axle counters will not save much money. I am not aware of any mainline railway that has been brave enough to do away with secondary detection, and only one MRT (Bangkok Skytrain) that has. If someone knows different, I would like to hear.

That law clearly isn't worth the paper it's written on because several resignalling schemes have been carried out in recent years where lights on sticks have been replaced by new lights on sticks or semaphores have been replaced with lights on sticks.  Sounds like the sort of law NR or whoever can cite to justify ETCS when it wants to but which can be totally ignored otherwise. 

Whatever the merits of it may be, the financial case doesn't add up at all.  As has been said you save the cost of signals, their structures, cabling, and control modules albeit in what appears to be a slowly diminishing number of situations due to the belated realisation that fitting cabs is expensive.  Presumably LED signals need little in the way of maintenance relative to those using conventional lamps so little will be saved there or else why has NR spent a fortune replacing just about every signal head in the country?   Points will still fail, axle counters will still get confused, lineside modules will still have nervous breakdowns, cables will still get eaten by rodents or nicked.  The argument that fitting the fleet is a one off cost doesn't stack up either, for example the 700s have just had to have a very expensive ETCS upgrade to make them compatible with what's being installed on the ECML.  I expect that to become a regular feature and ongoing cost.

Another hidden cost is diminished fleet inter-changeability.  I've already mentioned the likely compromising of diversion options and things like GN borrowing a couple of GX 387/2s to cover a short term lack of availability isn't going to be an option any more.  I know GN are getting the 379s which may make that specific example a moot point but in general moving stock around in future will be more difficult and costly.  Even when stock is fitted we may get a 700 type situation where one route is on version 97 and the stock is on version 65 or whatever.  We're already seeing stock with potentially useful life being scrapped, the requirement for ETCS on some routes and the cost of fitment or upgrade will just make that more likely.

Hmm so there are potentially going to be sections aside from the first trial section around Welwyn with conventional signals.  Remind me again what the actual financial benefits of this are supposed to be. 

The indisputable gains are ATP for fitted trains, "free" bang road operation for fitted trains and a theoretical capacity increase for fitted trains which may or may not be realised in actual operation.  You have a potential saving from not renewing signals, gantries and brackets on sections with no signals.  You still have most of the other costs such as interlockings, point machines, loc cases, cabling etc and the additional enormous cost of fitting cabs with the equipment.  I wondered how long it would be before the signals away idea started to be compromised by the cost of the latter. 

The other issue is that with no signals on some sections what we're going to end up with is sections of railway that cannot be used by a proportion of the train fleet.  So for example it may no longer be possible to divert the Scottish sleepers via the ECML without an almighty faff involving locomotive changes or piloting using fitted locomotives.  That is not consistent with reduced costs. 

There are perfectly valid reasons for doing this but I'm just not seeing the widely parroted cost reduction being one.   I suspect any cost reductions there are will be to NR but the overall costs to the industry will actually be higher than they would have been if this wasn't done. 

5 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

Reading back through the last pages it seems that the ETCS applications are being done as an overlay. I can understand why that is (cheaper and migration easier) but that eliminates one of the benefits of ETCS: improved capacity. (You can use shorter block sections where you have continuous ATP as some of the safety margins are not required and where you have slow lines next to fast you can optimise the block sections on the slow for that traffic rather than being constrained to use longer sections than necessary so that signals on adjacent lines are aligned).

 

Is the plan generally to retain existing blocks or will they be optimized? Or will higher speeds be allowed?

I think the increased capacity argument is going to turn out to be something of a fallacy unless there is a major change in philosophy wrt defensive driving.  I don't know what happens on the Cambrian but it's not difficult to imagine training on ETCS going something along the lines of if there's a speed reduction incoming then always stay 20 mph or whatever under the curve . 

This kind of thing already happens on TVM430 lines where drivers typically want to have one block in hand in front of an incoming speed reduction which I suspect came originally from SNCF's long standing doctrine of being very cautious when running under adverse signals.  There's nothing wrong with this from a safety perspective but it does chew up capacity so I expect the real world usable capacity will be nothing like it is on paper. 

Now full supervision ATP should give the confidence that you can drive closer to the braking curve in safety however after years of defensive driving being hammered in and possibly fear that an ATP intervention will be a hanging offence, I just don't see it.

Labour pre-1964 GE: We will scrap the Beeching line closures

Labour pre-1997 GE: We will reverse privatisation

Labour now: .....

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice ...

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Which series of The Sweeny had the shot in the opening titles of the pedestrian overpass (long since dismantled) over Shepherds Bush?

That'll be the closing titles of Series 4.  The opening and closing titles were changed for Series 4 and, let's just say, it divides opinion amongst devotees.  Personally I prefer the "classic" tinted stills opening and closing titles used in the first three series and I suspect I'm not alone.

On 30/03/2024 at 11:35, DenysW said:

The knitting  is visually complete (at least) as far as Kilsby Bridge.

 

At the B562 crossing just south of the Junction there's no sign of anything new looking north, but looking south there's some HV stuff, but no wires or pylons.

 

Southwards:

 

 

I travelled out of St Pancras on Friday, and although I could only see the up line, it looked to me as though there were only two sections devoid of wiring.  One just on the London side of Market Harborough (1 wire run missing, maybe 2 at the most) and the very last bit in the area shown in the picture.  A few bridges being rebuilt and the feeder stations/HV stuff to "wire up" but a vast amount of progress since my last trip along the MML a few months ago. 

34 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I’m sorry but 700’s are dull as ditch water..

 

going to London on a grey morning and seeing a grey unit arrive, rammed end to end is not exciting at all.

 

 

tbh the bland blue 701’s doesnt do much for me either…SWR will be duller without its vivid colours.

I agree.  However the point made was that all CD trains are the same type and colour.  Dull they may be but they aint Electrostars and they aint Southern Electrostar Green.

8 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Yes an' no - the former home of the other half of the 455 fleet is certainly a one livery/one unit railway

Not entirely.  Southern does have the red 387/2s operating on the GatEx/Brighton fudge and sometimes elsewhere.  Also, and depending on how you define "railway", the erstwhile Central Division sees 700s and 165s.

13 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Blitz with Jason Statham at the Paddington rail depot with 3rd rail stock

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_(2011_film)

Otherwise known as Stewarts Lane. 

22 hours ago, The Border Reiver said:

I have obtained my late friend's photos who never recorded numbers, dates or locations. The previous slides in sequence were taken in south west England. Now it looks like he headed to the midlands. Thanks to everyone I have narrowed the date to 1981 and as he took his railrover holidays in June the date is June 1981. Now we have two photos seemingly taken at the same location. We have class 20 20087 and another hauling coal and class 56 56047 light engine. Can anyone identify the location?

 

 

22 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Pretty sure these are Burton-on-Trent.  The canopy has gone but those bridges are pretty distinctive.  

It's Nottingham. 

The 20s are where P7 is now. 

The 56 is at the east end.  The pipe bridge visible on the left is still there.

On 22/03/2024 at 22:56, ruggedpeak said:

Interesting business strategy. Lost the JR to the ORR with a clear decision that the ORR is correct. The Jacobite contract expires this year and they can't run the service at all at present. Genius.

 

And now a petition has started to try and get a safety regulator to change its position on a serious safety issue that has already been examined by a High Court Judge. The petition is pretty weak effort. Worrying but not surprising in the social media age that people think safety regulations should be determined by a petition signed by amateurs. 🤣 WCRC could try and boost their credibility by publicly disowning the petition as an inappropriate way to respond to the High Court decision, but I'm guessing that won't happen. 

 

I also hear that Boeing are watching to see if this petiton works in case they can get one to overrturn the FAA restrictions on 737s.....🤪

 

 

I would dispute the assertion that the matter in hand is a "serious" safety issue.  A serious safety issue is Wootton Bassett, those unlicensed clowns that spadded at Stafford, NR connecting signal wires back to front at Wingfield, ditto its cowboy, hacked point wiring at Waterloo, Lumo overspeed at Peterborough etc etc.  The low probability of a slam door coming open or being opened on a single set of stock doing a couple of round trips a day in the summer is a safety issue but not a serious one.

I am a vehement critic of the ORR because I believe it has done far more harm to the wellbeing of the railways than good.  It has systematically redefined the "Reasonably" from ALARP to something no dictionary would recognise.  I would have much greater sympathy with it in this case if it didn't have such an atrocious record of imposing enormous cost for negligible, and in some cases zero, safety benefit. 

Oh and for the avoidance of doubt, the court case did not rule that the ORR was right in insisting that WCRC fit CDL, merely that it had the legal authority to insist that WCRC did.

There's loads of them.   Just in my neck of the woods in S/SW London and off the top of my head there's Carshalton, Wallington, Purley, Coulsdon Town, Raynes Park, Esher, Byfleet & New Haw, Leatherhead, Redhill, Wandsworth Town, Queenstown Road and Vauxhall.

7 minutes ago, JeffP said:

Went to Manchester last week.

Scunny to M60, about 65 minutes.

End of M60 to Portland St, near Piccadilly, another 40minutes.

Even worse coming out.

And don't get me started on bus lanes, one way streets, buses and taxis only etc etc etc.

Is that all?  Luxury.  In the leafy SW London suburbs we recently made the stupid mistake of taking the bus through Worcester Park.  Took 35 minutes to go half a mile.  Always a congested road at the best of times it is even worse now.  Why?  Because it is outside the ULEZ expansion zone but all the roads to the east of it are in the zone.  Improve air quality by increasing congestion.  See also LTNs.  Genius. 

On 20/03/2024 at 08:05, iands said:

First time I've noticed the low-level headlight. Anyone know why the 377/3s don't appear to have them fitted? 

On 21/03/2024 at 12:29, John M Upton said:

 

Not been fitted as part of the Project Aurora upgrade yet. All the 377/1's and 377/4's have been done, the first 377/2 (377202) is due out any day now and when the other 14 377/2's have been done, the 377/3's are next.

 

Anyone seen 377324 around by the way? It seems to have vanished.

In the previous Southern 377 major overhaul programme the 377/3s were the last to be done so I assume the fleet is being done in the same sub-class order as before.

I thought ASLEF's policy was to oppose RDW.  Another example of their principles being expendable when cash is dangled.  See also Thameslink K0 12 car DOO and expansion of Southern DOO.

Imo RDW is an anachronism which should have no place on today's railway and it's about time it was consigned to the bin.  A reliable service is more use to the public than a fairy story timetable so run the service for which you have the headcount.  If that service is unacceptable to the public then ask them if they want to pay higher taxes or higher fares to pay for more staff.  Then proceed accordingly.

I saw a report that the charging rails at West Ealing had been fitted in a position which made it impossible to fit two units in the platform whilst charging.  The rails were going to have to be moved as a result. 

What is it about the railway today which makes it so exceptional at wasting money?  If there is a requirement to fit two units in the platform, which it appears there is, then why on earth was this not factored in at the start?  It's not rocket science and this expensive ineptitude makes my blood boil. 

On 19/03/2024 at 22:35, Railpassion said:

Lots of wonderful models from Heljan, but does anyone else find that after a few months performance becomes erratic due to dirt, dust etc? 

I have Bachmann class 20s and 24s and they have always been smooth tunners for almost 20 years now. I can't say the same for my Heljan class 26/27s. I've had to strip them down for a thorough clean to get them back to initial performance. 

 

Is this common to other members? 

 

Quite the reverse.  I have Heljan 47s from the dawn of time "tubby duff" period which just run and run and run with minimal attention.  My Bachmann diesels from the same period are about due their 3rd major stripdown.  Hornby I've lost count. 

I spent much of my childhood in Derbyshire and it was always going into SR land, particularly the two big London termini of Waterloo and Victoria.  It all seemed so completely different in so many respects to the wide eyed me.

Waterloo with its strange old departure boards, large lettered cubes hanging from the roof from where enormous lines of holiday makers destined for the Isle of Wight, Bournemouth, Weymouth etc would snake across the concourse, the ornate platform barriers with their gates, ocean liner boat trains, class 73, 74, 33 and REPs, and 09s with high level air pipes.

Then there was Victoria.  All the hustle and bustle but for the most part the only train noise was the slamming of doors and the air being dumped by recently arrived emus.  The South Eastern side in particular always seemed immensely exotic to me.  Literally the gateway to Europe with a constant stream of Continental boat trains, MLVs on the stops sometimes on P1, P2 and P8 simultaneously, Class 71s, the Golden Arrow and the Night Ferry.

There were obviously other places that were wholly different.  Doncaster with hoards of kids crowding around every deltic.  Crewe as it was in the 60s and 70s with its curious mix of ancient track layout, diesels, AC electrics and loco changing.  Woodhead.  The WR hydraulics and lower quad signals etc etc.  To me though the SR was a unique world of its own and I loved it.

On 05/09/2022 at 20:15, Ncarter2 said:

The 350 fleet did have modifications to the bogies not long after delivery. They were incredibly harsh to the track, rail was wearing out far quicker than it should. The 450 fleet didn’t, from memory, has the same level of modification, though I would argue they ride a little better. 

The 450s and 444s both had bogie modifications as they were hammering the track to bits.  I have no idea whether the mods were the same as the 350s but the track access charges for both 450s and 444s were reduced after they were done which suggests the results of the mods were significant.

On 14/03/2024 at 10:17, Michael Hodgson said:

So don't use St Pancras - couldn't they build an International Station at Waterloo?

Admittedly that would be a classic modern day railway move.  Abandon Waterloo in 2007, leave it unused for years, spend a fortune reworking it for Waterloo domestic services, then decide to use it for international again requiring another fortune to be spent to undo what you spent the previous fortune on.  Even if you think that's going be approved (which it isn't) then you've got another issue which is that only the few remaining 373s are in gauge for HS1 - Waterloo.  So that needs another fortune to fix.

There's no getting away from one inconvenient truth.  It's St.Pancras or nowhere and although there is no doubting its splendour as a building, operationally it is a disaster.  There are insufficient platforms for any of the service groups that use it.  It might be possible to add additional East Mids platforms to the west and/or Kent platforms to the east but I don't see any way of expanding the international platforms. 

The only thing I can think of is that the 2 unused outer platforms at Stratford become turn round servicing points.  Once all the punters are off an inbound at St. P you work the empties away to one of the two platforms at Stratford.  Cleaning, re-tanking, catering restock etc all take place there, then you work the empties back again to St. P for immediate boarding.  Doing that with a few trains across the day might free you up enough platform space to fit a few more services in. 

On 13/03/2024 at 19:19, Wickham Green too said:

I'm not sure it's possible to run St.Johns to Charing Cross since the last London Bridge revamp !!?! ( Thameslink rather gets in the way.)

On 13/03/2024 at 20:14, Oldddudders said:

Does that apply to New Cross, too?

It is still possible to run St Johns/New Cross - Charing Cross in both directions but it's far easier from an operational perspective in the down direction than the up as going up requires just over a mile on the reversible line 7. 

Although it is reversible, Line 7 is heavily used by down trains so I suspect using it in the up direction would likely be something only done in extremis.

31 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

Thank you (and others) for your comments. I think the situation is that my resident DCC team member (who doesn't use Digitrax on his own layout) has read up on the problem and knows (in theory) what to do when we get to our next show (KEYMODELWORLD) but would just like the reassurance that there might be someone on hand who could be called upon if something goes wrong.

Without knowing what you are proposing to do it is difficult to comment.  However it seems to me that one obvious suggestion is to try the change well before the show ensuring you make a note of the original values of anything you change so you know what to go back to.

There are Digitrax and Loconet fora on groups.io.  Some of the contributors on there know the systems inside out right down to bit and byte level.  

Otherwise I've been using Digitrax since 2000 and know a bit about it and loconet's inner workings so there's a vague chance I may know.  What is the problem?